


May They Rest at Ease

by ambivalentlangst



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Chronic Pain, For lance, Garrison trio, Gen, Hurt and comfort, I really appreciate my soldiers, Langst, Reference to canon events, Whump, based off of garrison trio scene, give these kids a break, in season five, they're good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 04:33:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13967421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambivalentlangst/pseuds/ambivalentlangst
Summary: Soldiers are created to say "vrepit sa" and die in a blaze of glory for their empire. They are not created to babysit kids, but some don't mind, because someone has to keep the cubs safe. The universe they defend certainly doesn't.





	May They Rest at Ease

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!!! Long time no motivation!!! I realize I’ve been absent for awhile after I shat out that one  _thicc_ one shot, but I finally have something to post! It’s an original idea that I got attached to really fast: the concept of the soldiers that stayed loyal to Lotor being assigned to guard the Garrison trio, and upon learning how young they were, decided they would do pretty much anything to protect them. Involving some angst, whump, and comedy, I really like how this turned out, so I hope you do too!
> 
> * * *
> 
> tw: panic attacks, implied violence, and use of derogatory language
> 
> * * *

Trivars and Lovan were not what one would call prime soldiers, by any stretch of the imagination. Lovan had trouble doing more then a poor sprint, and Trivars currently had little to no muscle mass to speak of. Still, they’d been trained, like every other Galra in the empire. Everyone was enlisted to serve from the ages of twenty one phoebs to thirty one. For a time, they’d been in shape. They of course had to graduate top of their faction to be stationed with the main fleet, but it was easy to let loose a little when the fortress was hardly large enough to comprehend, and nobody ever actually attacked.

 

The rebels went after more remote locations, where it took longer for backup to reach and got the runts of the group. They got to reap the rewards of a few movements of hard work, and even when the new emperor ascended the throne, he appeared to have no desire to ship them out, which was good.

 

Truth be told, neither of them were all too eager to leave their little outpost, despite the fact that there’d been considerably more traffic their way ever since Voltron had been resurrected. There’d of course been the murmurs of dissent. The emperor was a  _ half-breed,  _ their commanders sneered, vitriol harsh in their tones. Lovan had personally looked to Trivars. They’d arrived to their current station essentially at the same time, despite the fact that their training ships were several galaxies apart from one another. It was generally kind of hard to dislike one another when they were both equally committed to staying out of as much conflict as possible, and were more content waging war on the old and very blind cook for extra servings then saying “vrepit sa” and blowing up their own ships.

 

“Meet me on the rec deck for cards?” Trivars mouthed, while Commander Nermant raged on. Lovan nodded, and that was the end of any protest from them towards the power switch.

 

It was with that kind of attitude that they got assigned to food patrol, and despite the fact that most of their superiors had jumped ship upon Lotor’s seizure of the throne, they didn’t really want their positions, so they did as they always did. Quajants, the cook, was too old to care much about the shift in rulers anyways. As long as he had his grill and pitiful variety of seasonings, he’d work.

 

When Lotor assigned them to the comfort and care of three of the paladins, they started to be a little mindful of his rule. The paladins, green, blue, and yellow at least, were absolute  _ freaks,  _ and had apparently very little regard for their own lives. They’d chased them across the ship for blowing up food packets—certainly nothing Quajants approved of, but quiznack them both if they sometimes needed a break from the surprisingly tasty brick impersonations he made. Lovan in particular had bemoaned that later, his legs aching from the exercise they hadn’t endured in quite some time. Still, there was no escaping it, and they at the very least could admire the artistry in launching the sentry out of the robeast coffin. It was a lot less disconcerting than the— _ shudder _ —witch using it for her own vile purposes, so they sucked on their popsicles and didn’t say anything about it.

 

It was only later that they realized that their antics were not the work of young adults having too much free time, and rather the products of cubs who desperately needed a break from the war they fought.

 

Lovan had first seen it, when the blue (red? it was very confusing and there were bets going around about which lion he actually piloted) paladin had shown up from a recon mission out in the quadrants still in turmoil.

 

He had of course been there to greet him, because true they weren’t motivated, but they at least did what few duties they were assigned well. The paladin came from the hangars rubbing his back, stumbling into walls and clacking his teeth occasionally for no apparent reason. Lovan’s brows scrunched tightly together. He was not well versed in the way of the paladins’ species, but from what he had observed it was not normal behavior.

 

“Paladin, do you need to be taken to the infirmary?” he asked, and the boy had stopped, bracing himself against a wall.

 

“No, no, I’m fine. And I told you to call me Lance. I just got a little close to another explosion, and I still get some pain sometimes from one that got me awhile back. First foot battle I’d fought, actually,” he muttered, mostly to himself. Lovan still had his concerns, but Lance waved him off.

 

“I’m ‘gonna go lie down in one of the spare rooms for a bit. Lotor mentioned where they were when we first arrived, so you don’t have to show me,” he told him. Lovan resisted the urge to argue, and watched the paladin stumble away. He’d be fine, probably. He was a warrior.

 

Lance did not come out from the rooms in a “bit”, and it was in fact Lovan who came in to check on him. The Altean castle ship stayed near Galra headquarters, which was certainly a change up from the norm but not entirely unwelcome. It was a symbol of peace, at the very least, a reminder that though they were soldiers they might not have to fight. Regardless of its proximity, Lance appeared to not care if the way his body was pressed wholeheartedly into the mattress was any indication.

 

“Uh, Lance, right?” The name was odd on Lovan’s tongue, and it came out strangely with the way he stressed different sounds. “Is there anything you need? By Galra standards, you’ve been down for quite some time,” he told him, standing off to the side. He did not care to do anything that wasn’t authorized, and have the emperor find out. 

 

Lance turned on his side with a hiss of pain, staring out at Lovan through glassy eyes. He bit his lip, seeming to debate it for a moment before murmuring meekly, “Do you have a heating pad somewhere?” 

 

Lovan nodded. “Of course, I’ll have it brought it immediately, sir.” The “vrepit sa” he usually added at the end of such an address was on the tip of his tongue, but he shoved it down and turned away. Only out of the corner of his eye did he see the way Lance rolled back onto his stomach, hands twisted into white knuckled grips around the fabric of the sheets. He frowned.

 

Lovan came back to give him the pad as requested, and found Lance as he had left him. “On your back?” he asked, and the paladin nodded. Lovan carefully set it across the boy’s skin, smoothing out the lumps in the gel as gently as he could. He was a soldier, but he was not cruel. He was inspecting his work when he heard Lance sniffle, and smelled the faint salt that came from his tears. “Lance?” he spoke after a moment’s hesitation. “Are you alright? Was I too rough?” 

 

Lance waved him off, not moving from his position on his stomach. “No, no, it’s not you. I’m just—it hurts is all. Coran had some meds for it, that’s our, uh, advisor I guess, but we ran out and I’ve been meaning to ask Lotor but he’s been busy so I just need some time. I’m fine,” he explained, but his hands hadn’t unfurled from their positions. Lovan examined him, unsure of how to respond, but knowing that if he made a move to leave, the emperor would have his hide. In line with how contradictory he was to most of what the Galra represented, the emperor had instructed both he and Trivars to treat the paladins with utmost care. With his orders in mind, Lovan crossed to the other side of the bed and sat. There was plenty of room to spare, considering how slight all of the paladins were.

 

Lovan remembered his sister, older then him and with cubs of her own. He had liked being an uncle, on the rare time he had off. He didn’t know how old Lance was, the subject had never before been broached, but he did feel as though something had to be done to comfort him. He stared at his hand for a moment, flexing clawed fingers experimentally, and then settled them delicately into Lance’s hair.

 

The boy tensed for a moment, shoulders hunching, before he let out a soft cry of pain at his own action and relaxed. Lovan twisted his hair in his fingertips, ran his hands gently over his scalp and down the back of his neck. Cubs calmed quickly with ears scratched and pats lavished atop their heads, but Lance did not have the same furry features Lovan was accustomed to, so he made do. He said nothing, but Lance didn’t pull away and soon the tension in his body melted away along with his tears. When Lovan looked over and saw his eyes closed, he felt content.

 

Lovan later told Trivars about the incident through time spent cleaning their rifles, to which he replied that he’d experienced something similar with the green paladin, or Pidge, as she preferred to be called.

 

She’d come back from a mission worn, a scuff on her glasses that she was apparently trying to buff out but was being stubborn. Trivars had offered his assistance, but he’d been shooed away until she absolutely burst into tears, to which he panicked because he had his orders, and he wasn’t so great with emotions.

 

“Pidge was crying and she started telling me about how her dad and her had gone with her brother to pick out the ‘frames’, and her dad had gone back home and Matt was on a mission. She cried for awhile, and then I got her to step away from her computer and take a nap.” Trivars stated it plainly, tongue poking from the side of his mouth as he rubbed his rag over a particularly hard to reach nook in the build of the weapon.

 

Lovan took a moment to process the information, and it wasn’t until they were putting their blasters back onto the rack that he wondered aloud, “How old do you think they are, anyways?” 

 

Trivars paused, already halfway to the door. His lips pressed together, ears twitching. “They’re warriors. I’d assume they’re young, if the incident with the sentry means anything, but after a year spent in training, they’d have to be twenty two phoebs, at least. I don’t know what they’re supposed to look like at that age. Humans,” the word was stretched awkwardly to accommodate fangs and a fumbling tongue, as many involving the paladin’s were, “age differently, of course, but that’s a good guess.” Lovan nodded. Young, but not obscenely so. He didn’t dwell on it for too much longer, and raced Trivars to the rec room. He wanted the good chair, without any of the common rips in it that usually came from a botched game some recruit got sensitive about.

 

A few weeks later, the paladins that Lovan and Trivars were in charge of again stayed on emperor’s ship, as was becoming routine with the continuing negotiations between Voltron and what technically constituted the empire. The ship was on its sleep cycle when the alarms began to blare, and the whole thing shuddered violently, an explosion able to be heard off to the west. Lovan and Trivars, who were sleeping peacefully in their bunks, jolted awake and stumbled over each other in an attempt to get to their guns first.

 

They both raced down the halls, yelling at each other. “Lotor is going to kill us!” Trivars announced loudly, cringing as the ship shook again.

 

“The paladins are up ahead. They said something about a ‘sleep over,’ and apparently are staying in the same room for the night. We can corral them there,” Lovan told him. He was not so out of breath as he had once been, traipsing after their charges while doing damage control for their antics. The paladins had gotten the both of them back into shape unwittingly, but effectively.

 

They burst into the room to find the three suited up, but crouched around the yellow paladin, who sucked in wheezing breaths as best as he could, and seemed to curl further into himself every time there was a particularly loud bang to be heard. Lance rubbed his back, while Pidge held his hands to keep his nails from sinking into the skin of his palms. “Hunk, Hunk, it’s okay. We’re all okay. Lotor and Allura and Shiro can take care of it. It’s just some of the rebels. Remember? Unorganized, scattered. It’s nothing like before.” 

 

Trivars looked to Lovan, unsure of how to proceed. Lovan shrugged. If he had to guess from their conversation, the yellow paladin was agonizing over memories of a nasty fight where an accident had happened. He’d seen soldiers in similar states under Zarkon’s rule, except of course their superiors weren’t nearly as forgiving. They could hear footsteps from down the hall, sloppy, limping. Trivars’ ears twitched, the sound still too far off for the paladins to hear.

 

Hunk continued to gasp, and Lance’s expression darkened, eyes narrowing. “He’s seventeen. I’m seventeen, and I’m on the floor helping him get a panic attack under control so we can go out and fight the thing that caused it. This is fucked,” he hissed, knowing Hunk wouldn’t register it at the moment, and Pidge nodded her agreement. She kept her grip gentle on Hunk’s hands regardless.

 

Lovan looked to Trivars, trying to understand what had been said. They didn’t use the same terminology, but they got the gist. Lovan’s finger moved to the trigger of his blaster, and he willed himself to keep from firing. There was no enemy at the moment, and the sound would only exacerbate whatever was occurring with the yellow paladin, no, with Hunk. Trivars’ voice was hard when he spoke, claws denting the metal of his own gun. “We’ll be in the hall. Keep yourselves safe. The rebels will be dealt with,” he explained, and Lovan followed him out the door that slid shut behind them.

 

The rebels came skulking towards their location with smoldering clothes and a fire in their eyes. “Stand down,” the apparent leader sneered. “Don’t waste your lives in defense of a  _ half-breed _ .” Lovan thought of the way Lance had melted into his touch, and Trivars remembered Pidge’s hysterics after her father and brother left, even only temporarily. The memory of Hunk’s fear was fresh. Where the rebels were scorching in their intensity, they were cool and frozen over with resolve. They looked to one another, guns growing hot under their paws.

 

They weren’t fighters for the empire, exactly. They could care less what Lotor did as long as it was easy for them. They were, however, willing to be protectors of the cubs, their cubs, that were caught in a war they shouldn’t have to deal with.

 

“Vrepit sa,” Trivars and Lovan snarled, and opened fire.


End file.
